Meeting Jesus againfor the first time

Marcus J. Borg (Harper Collins
Paperback)

I found this book stimulating. The title gives a clue to the
content. We have already met Jesus, formed opinions about him
over the years and modified them. This had been Borg's experience.
He moved outside of the faith movements for a while. Now he
offers out of experience a new way to meet Jesus again for the first time.

Marcus tells his personal story to illustrate the process he has been
through in meeting Jesus, and refining the insights. The
movement is from childhood, to adolescence, College,
Seminary and beyond. At Seminary he discovered the contrast between
the Johannine images of Jesus with the synoptic to be so great that one of
them had to be non-historical. Both could not be accurate
characteristics of Jesus as a historical figure.

He learnt of two consensus positions:

First, that we can't know very much about at all about the Jesus of history.

Second, from the little we can know about Jesus, he was
an 'eschatological prophet' who expected and proclaimed the end
of the present world and the coming of the Kingdom of God in the very near
future. As a 22 year old seminarian he found this exciting.

Now - beyond belief to relationship. Finally to
complete his story, Borg says he met Jesus again. Until his
late thirties he saw the Christian life as being primarily believing.
Now he sees the Christian life as entering into a relationship with that to
which the Christian tradition points, which may be spoken of as
God, the risen living Christ, or the Spirit.

Borg suggests it is useful to move beyond thinking of the historical
Jesus and the Christ of faith, to thinking of the pre-Easter Jesus and
the post-Easter Jesus. I found this a helpful suggestion. So
he turns to look at the pre-Easter Jesus ....

What manner of Man?

Marcus acknowledges his involvement from 1985 with the Jesus Seminar
scholars in determining the historical accuracy of the sayings of Jesus.
He seeks to separate of the voices, to see an image of the
pre-Easter Jesus.
"The first (and most important) source is the earlier layers of
Matthew, Mark and Luke ... which contained sayings of
Jesus, typical actions and a skeletal framework of his adult life."

"The second source is the earlier layer of the recently discovered
Gospel of Thomas, found in upper Egypt in 1945."

"Missing from our list of sources is the Gospel of John .....
Though it is a powerful and truthful testimony to the community's
experience of the post-Easter Jesus, it does not very closely reflect
the pre-Easter Jesus."

"Jesus was deeply Jewish. It is important to emphasize this
obvious fact."

"It is clear 'The Jews' did not reject Jesus. Rather
the few Jewish persons involved in the events leading up to his execution
were a small but powerful elite whose power derived from the Romans.
Instead of representing Jews, they might fairly be described as
collaborating in the oppression of the Jewish people."

Marcus goes on to deal with the birth of Jesus, his socialization
and early adulthood, before providing an adult sketch.

On the negative side he says:

"Jesus' self-understanding was in all likelihood nonmessianic
.... His message was not about believing in him. Rather,
the pre-Easter Jesus consistently pointed away from himself to God.
His message was theocentric, not christocentric -
centered in God, not centered in a messianic proclamation about
himself."

In a similar way it was noneschatological. Jesus was not
expecting the supernatural coming of the Kingdom of God.

On the positive side - four things to note. The historical Jesus was:

a spirit person.

a teacher of wisdom

a social prophet

a
movement founder

Implications for the Church?

"The image of the pre-Easter Jesus as one who experienced God is quite
different from common understandings of Jesus."

In answer to the question "Do you believe Jesus was God"
Marcus suggests the answer is "No, the pre-Easter Jesus was not
God."

"The sketch of Jesus as a spirit person suggests that Jesus was not
simply a person who believed strongly in God, but one who knew God."

Jesus, Compassion, and Politics

"Two key words enable us to glimpse what was most central to Jesus:
Spirit and Compassion."

"Compassion is a particularly important word in the gospels.
The stories told about Jesus speak of him as having compassion and
of his being moved with compassion. The word also represents the
summation of his teaching about both God and ethics. For Jesus,
compassion was the central quality of God and the central moral quality of a
life centered in God."

Marcus provides an interesting exposition of 'The Purity System of
the Jewish Social World' followed by an explanation of Jesus' attack
upon the Purity System.

"The purity system was to create a world with sharp social boundaries
between pure and impure, righteous and sinner, whole and not
whole, male and female, rich and poor, Jew and Gentile."

"At the centre of the purity system were the temple and the priesthood."

"In the message and activity of Jesus, we see an alternative social
vision, a community shaped not by the ethos and politics of
purity, but by the ethos and politics of compassion."

"Many of the sayings of Jesus indicted the purity system
... Jesus spoke of purity as on the inside and not on the outside."

"The critique of the purity system is the theme of one of Jesus most
familiar parables, the story of the Good Samaritan. Most often
interpreted as a message about being a helpful neighbor, it in fact
had a much more pointed meaning in the first-century Jewish social world.
It was a critique of a way of life ordered around purity ...
Thus this beloved and often domesticated parable was originally a pointed
attack on the purity system and an advocacy of another way:
compassion."

"We see the challenge to the purity system not only in Jesus' teaching
but in many of his activities. The stories of his healings shatter
the purity boundaries of his social world."

"One of his most characteristic activities was an open and inclusive
table. 'Table Fellowship' - sharing a meal with
somebody - had a significance in Jesus' social world that is
difficult for us to imagine."

Finally, Marcus Borg faces us with the Spirit and Compassion of
Jesus. A most telling and inevitable implication is directed to the
strongly negative attitude toward homosexuality on the part of some
Christians. He sees this as a purity issue. He
concludes "It seems to me that the shattering of purity boundaries
by both Jesus and Paul should apply to the purity code's perception of
homosexuality. Homosexual behavior should therefore be evaluated by
the same criteria as heterosexual behavior. It also seems to me that
the passage in which Paul negates the other central polarities of his world
also means, 'In Christ, there is neither straight nor gay.'
Granted, that Paul didn't say that, but the logic of 'life in
the Spirit' and the ethos of compassion imply it."

Jesus and Wisdom - Teacher of alternative wisdom

"Wisdom is one of the most important concepts for understanding of what the
New Testament says about Jesus. It is central for two reasons.
One the one hand, Jesus was a teacher of wisdom. This is the
strongest consensus among today's Jesus scholars. Whatever else can
be said about the pre-Easter Jesus, he was a teacher of wisdom
- a sage, as teachers of wisdom are called. On the other
hand, the New Testament also presents Jesus as the embodiment or
incarnation of divine wisdom."

"Strikingly, the most certain thing we know about Jesus is that he
was a story teller and speaker of great one liners."

Not that he would have used them all at once, as we sometimes
imagine.

"Sometimes it is the content of the one liner that is fresh and
arresting ... The saying is striking, enigmatic and evocative ... the
image is humorous, but with a bite to it as well."

"Thus as a wisdom teacher Jesus used aphorisms and parables to invite his
hearers to see in a radically new way."

Borg identifies a problem between 'conventional' and 'subversive and
alternative' wisdom.

Conventional Wisdom

"Conventional wisdom is the dominant consciousness of any culture. It
is a culture's most taken-for-granted understandings about the way things
are, (its world view, or image of reality) and about the way to
live (its ethos, or way of life). It is 'what everybody
knows' - the world that everybody is socialized into through the
process of growing up."

Conventional wisdom:

Provides guidance about how to live - it embodies the
central values of a culture

Is intrinsically based upon the dynamics of
rewards and punishments - 'you reap what you sow'

Has both
social and psychological consequences: Socially, it creates
a world of hierarchies and boundaries Psychologically, it
becomes the basis for identity and self esteem.

In short, whether in religious or secular form, conventional
wisdom creates a world in which we live.

"Life in this world can be and often is grim. It is a life of
bondage to the dominant culture, in which we become automatic cultural
persons, responding automatically to the dictates of culture.
It is a life of limited vision and blindness, in which we see what our
culture conditions us to see and pay attention to what our culture says is
worth paying attention to. It is a world of Judgement: I judge
myself and others by how well I and they measure up. It is a world of
comparisons: I may be aware that I am not the most attractive person
in the world, but because I am more attractive that some, I am
'okay'."

"There is an image of God that goes with the world of conventional
wisdom. When conventional wisdom appears in religious form, God is
imaged primarily as lawgiver and judge ..."

"When this happens in the Christian tradition, it leads to an image
of the Christian life as a life of requirements. Indeed, this
happens so frequently that it is the most common form of Christianity
... It is very common for Christians (and some
scholars) to identify Judaism with a religion of law and an image of
God as wrathful and judgmental, in contrast to Christianity,
which is seen as a religion of grace, with an image of God as
forgiving and loving. There are two things wrong with this
identification. First, it is historically inaccurate and
radically unfair to Judaism. There were voices of alternative wisdom
within Judaism ... Second it misses my point about conventional
wisdom completely. Conventional wisdom is not to be identified with
any particular tradition; it is pervasive in all traditions.
To emphasize the point once again, the conflict between conventional
wisdom and alternative wisdom is not a conflict between Judaism and
Christianity, but a conflict within both traditions."

Subversive and alternative wisdom

"As a teacher of wisdom, Jesus undermined the world of conventional
wisdom and spoke of an alternative. The two are intrinsically
linked: the first must be deconstructed in order for the second to
appear. Jesus set about this task in a number of ways."

"Jesus used the language of paradox and reversal to shatter the
conventional wisdom of his time."

He spoke of conventional wisdom as the broad way that that led to
destruction and "directly attacked the central values of his social
world's conventional wisdom: family, honor, purity and
religiosity. All were sanctified by tradition, and their
importance was part of the taken-for-granted world. It was against
these values that some of his most radical sayings were directed."

Jesus, the wisdom of God

"The second important role played by wisdom in the early Christian
movement's imagining of Jesus is Christological. The early layers of
the movement's developing traditions portray Jesus not only as a teacher of
wisdom, but also as intimately related to 'the wisdom of God'."

Marcus Borg identifies the contributions of the church councils at Nicea
(A.D. 325) and Chalcedon (A.D. 451). "As a result the most familiar
Christology to people both within and outside of the Church is one that
images Jesus' relationship to God as Son of the Father. This Son of
God Christology is the core of the popular image of Jesus."

"But this had not yet happened in the new Testament period. There
was as yet no official Christology. Rather, the New Testament
contains a variety of Christological images, which function as
metaphors for imaging the significance of Jesus and his relationship to God.
They had not yet been crystallized into doctrines ..."

Marcus Borg usefully examines Wisdom in the Jewish tradition before he
turns to the synoptic gospels to make a link with Jesus as a child of
Sophia (Wisdom) and John the Baptizer. The next step is
to see wisdom as a central category for the Apostle Paul, and finally
within the Gospel of John to see wisdom as logos within the prologue.

A complementarity of Christological images:

"Our exploration of the role of Sophia as Wisdom in the Jewish tradition
and in the New Testament discloses a number of things. It enables us
to see a nice symmetry between Jesus as a teacher of wisdom and the early
movement's image of him as one intimately related to Sophia. As the
voice of alternative wisdom, Jesus is also the voice of Sophia.

"It enables us to glimpse what may be the earliest Christology of the
Christian movement. The use of Sophia language to speak about Jesus
goes back to the earliest layers of the developing tradition."

This points not only to the centrality of Sophia language in the
formation of the early Christian movement, but also to a gender
complementarity of Christologies. For early Christianity, Jesus
was the Son of the Father and the incarnation of Sophia, the child of
the intimate Abba, and the child of Sophia. This
awareness is very helpful for us in an age of growing sensitivity to the
issue of inclusive language.

"It also points to the impossibility of literalizing Christological
language. The multiplicity of images for speaking of Jesus'
relationship to God (as logos, Sophia,
Son - to name but a few) should make it clear that none of
them is to be taken literally. They are metaphorical."

Images of Jesus and Images of the Christian Life

Finally Borg seeks to broaden his framework for thinking about the images of
Jesus and the images of the Christian life to include the Bible as a
whole, especially the Old Testament.

"In the last two decades, a movement known as story
theology has called attention to the narratival character of the
Bible, or to say the same thing, the centrality of 'story' in
Jewish and Christian Scriptures."

The Macro-Stories of Scripture:

The Exodus Story. "Most basically, it is a story of
bondage, liberation, a journey, and a destination
... Thus, as an epiphany of the human condition and the
solution, the story of the exodus images the religious life as a
journey from the life of bondage to life in the presence of God.
Though we find ourselves in bondage to Pharaoh, it proclaims,
there is a way out. Through signs and wonders, through the
great and mighty hand of God, God can liberate us, indeed wills
our liberation and yearns for our liberation, from life in bondage to
culture to life as a journeying with God."

The story of Exile and Return. "Like the exodus story, the
story of exile and return is grounded in historical experience
... It images the religious life as a journey to the place where God is
present, a homecoming, a journey of return."

The Priestly Story. "This story is not grounded in a particular
historical event, but in an institution of ancient Israel
- namely, the temple, priesthood, and sacrifice.
The Priestly story leads to a quite different image of the religious
life. It is not primarily a story of bondage, exile and
journey, but a story of sin, guilt, sacrifice, and
forgiveness. Central to it are notions of impurity,
defilement, and uncleanness, or that primal sense of 'being
stained' ... Within this story we are primary sinners who have broken God's
laws, and who therefore stand guilty before God, the lawgiver
and judge."

"All three of these stories shape the message of Jesus, the New
Testament, and subsequent Christian theology."

One of the oldest traditions sees the central work of Christ to be
triumphing over 'the powers' that hold humans in bondage, including
sin, death and the devil ... Like the exodus story, this image
sees the human predicament as bondage and the work of Christ as liberation.

Another image pictures the death of Jesus as a sacrifice for sin that
makes God's forgiveness possible.

"A third understanding of Christ's death and resurrection can,
with some modification, be correlated with the exile story
... The emphasis is not upon Jesus accomplishing something that
objectively changes the relationship between God and us, but upon Jesus
revealing something that is true."

"What is revealed is more than one thing. Sometimes the emphasis is
upon revealing what God is like (for example, love or
compassion). Sometimes the emphasis is upon Jesus as 'the light' who
beckons us home from the darkness of exile. Sometimes the emphasis is
upon Jesus death and resurrection as the embodiment of the way of
return, a disclosure of the internal spiritual process that brings us
into an experimental relationship with the Spirit of God. Within this
way of seeing Jesus, he is the incarnation of the path of return from
exile."

"Yet, though all three stories were important to Jesus, the early
movement, and subsequent Christian theology one of them -
the priestly story - has dominated the popular understanding of
Jesus and the Christian life to the present day. It is, of
course, the core element in the popular image of Jesus as the dying
savior whose death is a sacrifice for our sins, thereby marking our
forgiveness by God possible. To say 'Jesus died for our sins' is to
interpret his significance within the framework of the priestly story."

Borg notices the effect of the confession of sins in Christian worship.
He goes on to say "When the priestly story becomes the dominant story
or the only story for imaging Jesus and the Christian life, it has
serious limitations. Indeed, limitations is too weak it term.
When it dominates Christian thinking, it produces severe
distortions in our understanding of the Christian life."

Marcus lists six distortions:

It leads to a static understanding of the Christian life, making
it a repeated cycle of sin, guilt and forgiveness.

It leads to a passive understanding of the Christian life.
Passivity about the Christian life itself, rather than seeing life as
a process of spiritual transformation, and passivity toward culture.

It tends to lead to an understanding of the Christian life as primarily
a religion of the afterlife.

It images God primarily as lawgiver and judge.

It is hard to believe that God's only son came to this planet to offer
his life as a sacrifice for the sins of the world and God would not forgive
us without that having happened.

Some people do not feel much guilt. They may have strong feelings
of bondage, alienation or estrangement. For these people,
the priestly story has nothing to say.

Jesus and the Christian Life as Journey:

"The story of Jesus, and our understanding of the Christian
life, are much richer and fuller when we see them in the context of
all three stories, and not simply in the context of the priestly
story. All three stories informed and shaped Jesus own perception of
the religious life and therefor his message and activity."

"The conventional wisdom that he subverted had characteristics of both
bondage and exile, Egypt and Babylon."

"The emphasis both in Jesus' teaching and in the gospels themselves upon
a 'way' or 'path' also points to an understanding of the religious life as a
journey. Jesus teaches a 'way' and the gospels are about 'the way'."

"Jesus' relationship to the priestly story is somewhat different.
Here he subverts the story itself. His subversion of the purity
system undercuts the priestly story's image of the human condition as
'stained' or impure. He forgives sins apart from the institution of
temple, priest, and sacrifice, thereby negating their
necessity."

What picture of discipleship do we get? "I invite you to hear
what is said as resonating both with what it meant for his first followers
to be in relationship to the pre-Easter Jesus and what it means to followers
in every generation to be in relationship to the post-Easter Jesus."

Discipleship means:

being on the road with Jesus - in his company, or his presence

eating at his table and experiencing his banquet

becoming a part of the alternative journey

becoming compassionate - we have a transformist
understanding of the Christian life

"Thus we have what I would call a transformist understanding of the
Christian life, an image of the Christian life richer and fuller than
the fideistic and moralistic images I have described ... (chapter
1) It is a vision of the Christian life as a journey of
transformation, exemplified by the story of discipleship as well as by
the exodus and exile stories. It leads from life under the lordship
of culture to the life of companionship with God."

"It is an image of the Christian life as not primarily believing or being
good but as relationship with God. That relationship does not leave us
unchanged, but transforms us into more and more compassionate beings
'in the likeness of Christ'."

"Believing in Jesus in the sense of giving one's heart to Jesus is the
movement from secondhand religion to firsthand religion, from having
heard about Jesus with the hearing of the ear to being in relationship with
the Spirit of Christ. For ultimately, Jesus is not simply a
figure of the past, but a figure of the present. Meeting that
Jesus - the living Jesus who comes to us even now -
will be like meeting Jesus again for the first time."